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.122 The emphasis on perfecting democracy, aMasarykian phrase employed to represent the shift from the bourgeois de-mocracy of the First Republic to the still developing People s Democracy ofthe postwar republic, was neutral.Finally, the stress placed on the value ofthe individual although tempered by the ambiguity of the necessity of afreedom that was disciplined [and] responsible to the whole and the free-dom of research, creation, and (again responsible ) criticism certainly rep-resented a victory for Kulturní svaz.In its general tone and in the formulation of many of its phrases, the docu-ment strikes at the heart of the democratic socialists lack of clarity.As in somany documents that bear the marks of the democratic socialist hand, social-ism is seen as the primary tool of humanism.The role of the intellectual inthis socialism lay in the creation of its spiritual and moral content. While thismay have been intended by democratic socialist intellectuals as a rejection ofmaterialism, it points to their abstract understanding of the socialist venture. Chapter 10: Socialism and Democratic Socialist Intellectuals 227Similarly, a hint of democratic socialist messianism comes through in concernfor the mission of Czech history and in calling upon intellectuals to serve theirnation and thereby serve the world. The open character of the spiritual andmoral content of socialism and of the imprecisely modified conceptions offreedom leave these central notions open to the kinds of political manipula-tion and strategic abuse that communist intellectuals had proven themselvesamply able to perform.In this sense, the compromise the parties reached wasprecisely not a real one, and the uniting of the obec and svaz was exactlythe mechanical ob-vaz (bandage) that some had feared.123The response to the joint announcement was positive, as representativesfrom all factions rushed to claim that their side had been the first to call forunity.It is significant, however, that many of the more vocal antagonistswere less than enthusiastic, even though they themselves had been amongthe participants in the joint consultations.Hence E.F.Burian, who had de-voted three consecutive editorials in his weekly Kulturní politika to the af-fair, gave no public comment on the meetings and left it to the moderate lin-guist Pavel Eisner to welcome the proclamation and call for the organizationto adopt a vigorous action program.124 Ferdinand Peroutka, while refusing toassess winners and losers in the dispute, also expressed his reservations,writing that the announcement was in no way more than a beginning, sinceit is always easier to agree on common words than on their interpretation. 125On April 27, 1947, more than 600 intellectuals assembled in the Rudolfinumto witness the proceedings officially establishing the unified Kulturní jednota(Cultural Unity) organization.126 The resolution of the new institution, despiteits perhaps necessarily vague quality, reads suspiciously like a communistdocument.127 The members of Kulturní jednota merely do not renounce their individuality of ideas and creativity and agree to subordinate them-selves to the interests of the whole. Thus, the freedom for which democraticsocialists had struggled for five months disappears almost entirely.Not onlydid democratic intellectuals fail to secure at least a verbal guarantee of artisticand scholarly freedom, but the word freedom appears only once, in relationto the communist-driven idea of Slavism, in the phrase under the Slavic sunof freedom. In contrast to this, the communist revision of the national char-acter appears as a common desire of communist and democratic socialist in-tellectuals: We want our culture to be.the co-creator of a new, robust na-tional character. Similarly, the organization committed itself to burn off theremaining centers of fascism and injustice and to support.new, higherforms of democracy with the aid of all the democratic forces of world cul-ture. This implied that the People s Democracy was perhaps not democraticenough, and that further reforms (obviously drawing on experiences from theEast) were necessary.Finally, the most prominent democratic socialist ele-ment in the resolution is the emphasis on cultural synthesis, which is seenas an urgent task because humanity is at a historical turning point. 228 Part III: The Meaning of SocialismThe three inaugural speeches given there by the head of the organizingcommittee, J.B.Kozák, the democratic socialist Frantiaek Kovárna, and theCommunist Ladislav `toll, lent added significance to the event.These ex-plore some of the main themes of the democratic socialist communist de-bate and, taken with President Benea s address to the Congress of CzechWriters, were considered by Václav B%1Å‚hounek the most important speechesof the period concerning culture.128 Kozák, a well-known democratic social-ist professor of philosophy and a former Protestant cleric who had served inthe London exile, began by offering his thoughts on how the schism devel-oped and how Kulturní jednota had acted to heal the rift.129 He argued thatthe mistake did not lie in the creation of two organizations, but rather in theway the dividing line had been drawn.Even though some noncommunistshad joined Kulturní obec relatively rapidly, the public perception was that itwas an exclusively communist affair with Kulturní svaz lying on the oppo-site side of the divide, a powerful political reality that could not be over-come easily.The manner chosen to elude the problem was to stress the pointon which both parties agreed, an undefined socialism, rather than the thornydispute over freedom in which the democratic socialists had the political up-per hand.The joint document was not merely an attempt to be as inclusiveas possible, but excluded some points of view as well.As Kozák proclaimed: No uncritical or biased laudator temporis acti, praiser of times past, will besatisfied with it because it is progressive.No one can sign it who really is nota socialist. 130 Beyond the implicit rejection of the interwar republic, thisreinforces one central point: the vague, mediative quality of the non-communists formulations and the willingness to compromise (often at al-most any cost) made them weak rallying points for a public reeling from thecombined effects of Munich, war, and occupation.This left communist intel-lectuals, who stood on the firm ideological ground of scientific socialism, appearing the most self-assured and disciplined force in the nation.In this time of great change, Kozák continued, it was necessary to realizefully the depths of the change, and that was the task of the intellectuals andtheir new organization.He argued, There is not one among us who wouldbe committed to the hope that changes in the social structure, changes in theproperty and productive orders will automatically create complementaryand suitable types of people
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